A debate as to whether North Carolina's wild red wolves, the last of the species remaining in the wild, should be considered "essential" has reached a federal courtroom in Raleigh.
If the Center for Biological Diversity wins the case, the North Carolina red wolves would become the first of about 60 experimental populations reintroduced to the wild also deemed an essential population.
That designation would carry certain protections, including requiring the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to designate critical habitat for the species and requiring all federal agencies to formally consult with the service when proposing actions that may impact the population deemed essential. For so-called nonessential experimental populations, the more formal consultation process is only mandated when it would impact a national park or national wildlife refuge.
How could "essential" status help?
Perrin de Jong, an Asheville-based attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, used the example of a potential expansion of U.S. 64, the highway that runs through the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. The road has proven lethal for the species in recent years, with three red wolves dying there from vehicle strikes since 2023, including a father whose five pups died shortly after.
If that highway were ever expanded, de Jong said, measures to protect the wolves such as wildlife crossings would be required through the refuge but not outside of it. With an essential population determination, protections would be required throughout the five county red wolf recovery area.
"There are highways and roads all over the five-county recovery area, so this could really add up to quite a big deal in terms of on-the-ground protections that stop the deaths of red wolves," de Jong said in an interview.
In 2016, the Center for Biological Diversity filed a petition asking the Fish and Wildlife Serve to declare the eastern North Carolina red wolves an essential population. It took about seven years for the service to deny that petition, in January 2023.
There are 18 known adult red wolves in Eastern North Carolina, as well as 16 surviving puppies from four litters born this year, said Bonnie Ballard, a U.S. Department of Justice attorney representing the service. About 270 additional red wolves live in captivity.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has consistently pointed to its 1986 decision that the eastern North Carolina red wolf population should be considered non-essential and argued that recent recovery efforts, many of them spurred by court orders, should not be disrupted by additional regulations.
"The Court should reject Plaintiff’s notion that more litigation on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s ... denial of a decade-old 'emergency' petition for rulemaking is the best way to ensure red wolf recovery continues and instead allow the Service discretion to continue implementing its promising recent recovery efforts," Ballard wrote in an April document.
Ballard continued, arguing that the determination as to whether a given population is essential needs to be made before it is released into the wild and should only be revisited if the current area of that population is being changed. The Center for Biological Diversity isn't making such a request in this case.
When the Service decided in 1986 before releasing red wolves that the wild population would be considered nonessential, Ballard argued, it concluded that additional wolves released from captivity could, if necessary, replace the wild population.
Red wolves could 'cease to exist' in wild
During arguments in front of U.S. District Court Judge Terrence Boyle on Wednesday, de Jong said that he and co-counsel Collette Adkins had visited the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in late January and had nine red wolf spottings around the agricultural fields.
They had, Boyle shot back, seen the species' "whole roster."
Boyle also inquired as to whether red wolves that are bred in captivity could be seen as an equivalent, of sorts, to the wild population that lives in northeastern North Carolina.
No, de Jong responded, because the wild wolves carry knowledge about living in the wild that is passed among the packs and inherited from their mothers and fathers. By adapting, he told the judge, the wild population has become distinct from red wolves born in captivity.
"The captive (wolves) are not equivalent and would be at a relative disadvantage," de Jong said.
That's important to this case, de Jong argued, because a key factor in whether the Fish and Wildlife Service deems a given population essential is whether its extinction would threaten the ability of the species to exist in the wild.
A population of animals that would not threaten the ability of the species to survive in the wild can be deemed nonessential.
“If the 18 individuals perish, then the experimental population is gone and certainly the species will cease to exist in the wild," de Jong said.
Boyle said he plans to issue a written order in the case as soon as possible.
